9 Ways To Rock Your First Engineering Job
The first day at your first job is weird. You don’t know what to expect. Did school prepare you well enough? Do you remember the things you’re supposed to know? It’s tough at first, but here are nine things you can keep in the back of your mind for your first job so you’ll feel a little more confident.
1. Ask for help when you need it
One of the benefits of being new on any job is that you’re given that grace period of not knowing what the other engineers know and that’s okay. You’re given a little time to get acclimated to your new environment. It’s okay to forget someone’s name here and there or not know your way around the building.
This is an important grace period. Use this time to your advantage to learn as much as you can about the workplace you’re in. Make that extra effort to remember everyone’s name and remember the new things you’re taught. Write them down if necessary.
This period wears off quickly but you still won’t be expected to know everything. You’re new to the workplace, fresh out of college, and your employer knows that. They know you’ll have questions and will need help, so don’t be ashamed of it. Asking for help shows you’re not afraid to seek other people’s opinions when needed. Ask for help for more than just your way around the office, though.
If you’re stuck on a project you’re working on, ask another engineer for advice. If nothing else, you may have a good brainstorming session about it. Another amazing source of information is machine operators. They work on their machine all day every day and know more about how it works than the guys that built it.
If you’re in most plants, your work revolves around making sure the machine operators are consistently making quality products in as least amount of time as possible. This manifests itself in several ways from designing parts to creating time studies. The point is that when you need help, these are the people you need to be talking to.
2. Learn by Doing
The cool thing about working with seasoned engineers is that they know A LOT. Some went to college and some didn’t but the things they’ve spent their time doing, they’re pros at. I’ve been blown away sometimes at things I never knew I could do that these guys did so easily. And then taught me. I was wiring up control panels for a robot after about a year at my first job. Never thought I’d be able to do that. But it all started because I asked for help.
I showed interest in wiring up a data acquisition system to a machine we had. I asked if I could help the engineer install it because I wanted to learn. As it turned out, I wound up becoming my project. Apparently, I showed enough interest that they just let me take charge. It was a neat project that I learned a lot from. I made a lot of stupid mistakes that the other engineer was able to quickly diagnose so I could fix them. That’s how I learn best.
I tend not to learn by observation alone. I like seeing something done once and then trying to repeat it. If I do it wrong, I want to figure out what I need to change before I ask for more help. I need to do it myself in order for the information to stick. This is how I teach too. I’ll explain it to whoever I’m teaching, do it once, and then have them show me how to do it. Try this approach when learning a new skill if you don’t do this already. You may find it helps.
3. Learn the Things You Don’t Know Off the Clock
I’d like to add a disclaimer before I start this section. I don’t mean that you should clock out whenever your shift is over and then continue working. Your work off the clock should be for your benefit which will, in turn, benefit the company. Self-knowledge goes a long way and that’s what I’m talking about.
CAD is a perfect example. You probably used Inventor or SolidWorks during college. How much did you use it? If you’ve still got some skills but find that you should know more to do your job, take the time to learn it when you get home. CAD skills will be useful for your entire engineering career so it’s worth taking extra time to become proficient with a software. Most CAD software has trial versions of it so download the trial and watch some YouTube tutorials. It’ll help you so much down the road.
The same holds true for any software. For one of my internships, I needed to learn scripting language in AutoCAD. I spent a few nights doing some fairly basic tutorials and learned what I needed to know. A week later at work, I was able to write a pretty impressive script that saved a ton of time for me and a few coworkers. Now every time I need an AutoCAD script, I have a basis to go off of.
If you’re working on a project where some of your old classwork might come into play, browse through your old textbooks. On an oven I designed, I needed a quick recap about thermal expansion so I could calculate how to build the walls. I went back to my thermodynamics book and found the formulas I needed for thermal expansion. Obviously, this isn’t terribly difficult. I mean, it wasn’t like I was doing differential equations or anything, but I found the stuff I needed to know so when I went to work the next day, I had an idea of where to go.
The thing about classwork is that there is no way you could possibly remember four or five years worth of information every day of your life. This is why I disagree with the grading system so much but that’s an article for a different day. The more important thing is that you know the information exists and where to find it. Those two things will get you very far.
4. Ask for more work when you need it
Sometimes the employer doesn’t know how much you can handle. During my first six months or so at my job, I got fewer projects than everyone else, and for good reason. It took time for me to get used to the flow of things. But as I got better at my job, the days took a little longer to finish. I didn’t have enough to do but I didn’t say anything. I kind of just waited around for someone to give me work and when they did, I did it quickly.
If you’re bored, say something. Don’t expect anyone else to do it for you. It isn’t like college where you didn’t have to do anything if the professor didn’t give you homework. You have to find your own homework. As it was explained to me, “If you don’t like being told what to do, do it before you’re told.” This holds true and I try to remember it when I find myself with extra time on my hands. If you take charge of your job, you’ll have a lot more control over what you do. If you wait for others to tell you what to do, well, you’ll do what others want of you. Not what you want. You can change that if you want.
5. Be honest
You’re going to break something. I can tell you right now. Because you are new and have never done this before, you’re going to break something or screw something up. You’re going to cost the company money. You’re going to go into a situation feeling confident, do something wrong, and have no idea what to do. It’s happened to me more times in my life than I can count. There were definitely a couple during my first, and current, engineering job.
Listen carefully.
Don’t worry.
We have all been there. We have all screwed up and if we’re extremely lucky, it’s a minor mistake. Far more commonly the mistake costs $1000 or more, at least in my experience. This comes from destroying load cells, breaking motors, ordering the wrong material, using the wrong dimension on a drawing, and all sorts of annoying inconveniences.
But it’s okay. The best thing you can do is be honest about what happened and learn from it. Don’t try to hide your mistake. That just gets everyone in trouble. After all, look what happened to Volkswagen.
So be honest!
6. Be On Time
Maybe it’s the way I was raised (actually it’s definitely the way I was raised) but I can’t stand when people are late. I’m the type of person who is always 5 minutes early and if I’m going to be even a minute late, I call to let the person know.
Being on time in the business world seems very much related to your position. For instance, the president of my company hasn’t been on time to a single engineering meeting since I got hired. They’re the same time and day every week but we inevitably wait up to 20 minutes for him to get there.
But it’s his company. He’s the president. He can do what he wants. If I’m late, it gets noticed. So until you’re running your own company, be on time. It’s just the right thing to do.
This seems to be especially true of the old timers. When they say show up at 7:30, they mean show up at 7:30. They don’t have time to wait around for you. I don’t know, I guess it’s a generational thing.
It’s good for vendors, customers, bosses, and even the employees you may have someday. Being on time is professional and shows you care. If you can’t be on time, call. I’m probably more impatient than most people but when someone says they’ll meet me at 2 o’clock and they don’t show up, every minute I’m standing there waiting is a minute wasted. I probably need to lighten up, but then again, maybe not.
7. Don’t Be Afraid To Pick Up the Phone
So this was something I felt so awkward doing when I started my internships. I would have to call these part vendors and ask questions about how their product worked, or how to trouble shoot really expensive equipment over the phone. I always had to check with my boss to make sure I was saying the right things.
Sooner or later, you’re going to have to talk with tech support, customers, suppliers, people you don’t know. It’s awkward at first but so important. Plus you’ll quickly learn that it may save you a lot of headaches in the future. Yeah, you can fiddle around with whatever it is you’re working on until you get it to work, or you can call someone who knows and have them help you. This goes back to before. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
8. Be Open to Learning
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The coolest thing about engineering is that we are doing things no one has ever done before. You’ll be inventing new products, new processes, new tests and the things you do will affect the world. Maybe not the whole world, but some of it.
Therefore there’s going to be things you don’t know yet and you can’t find anywhere. Be open to learning new things, even though they may or may not help you in the future. I once read up on laser ablation for a whole week to try a new process of stripping parts at work only to wind up going a completely different direction a couple weeks later.
I was frustrated but I learned what didn’t work. As Edison said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work.”
9. Get Creative
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Seriously, though, be open to anything. Brainstorm on crazy ideas. Get creative. We’re engineers and we invent the world. Be creative about it.
I really hope this helps. Maybe I should have titled it 9 things I learned in my first year and a half as an engineer but I’ll leave it here for now.
